


It's Been a Long Time Coming

by iwasanartist



Series: Come Together [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Time Together, Friends to Lovers, Pre-Season 5, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Wordcount: 5.000-10.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 02:44:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8560315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwasanartist/pseuds/iwasanartist
Summary: Melissa and Stilinski have a semi-regular movie night. They always watch comedies, because between the hospital, sheriff’s station and the revolving door of monsters and assassins in Beacon Hills, they get enough drama, heartbreak and horror in their daily life. But this movie night is about to become anything but regular.





	1. Movie Night

**Author's Note:**

> If we ever learn Stilinski's name, I'll replace it here. In the meantime, I love these guys and have wanted to see them together since the first lacrosse game we saw them watch in season one. And since season six starts tomorrow, I figured it was now or never.

It happened so naturally.

Scott and Stiles were out with their friends on the last night of a camping trip before the start of their senior year, and Melissa and John were sitting on her couch, watching a movie.

Movie Night had been a thing that waxed and waned throughout their lives. It started after Claudia, and mostly as an excuse to distract the boys while John got slowly and progressively drunker at Melissa’s kitchen table until he woke up on her couch, draped in a quilt with a bottle of aspirin and glass of water by his head and the sound of two 8-year-olds running through the house while a whispered “keep it down!” hissed from the foot of the stairs.

Later — and after a harsh conversation about booze ruining Melissa’s marriage and her not wanting to watch it ruin her only friend left in this godforsaken town — they joined the boys in front of the TV, watching talking animals, swashbuckling heroes and whatever else caught the attention of the boys between them.

But as the kids grew and jobs got more hectic, Movie Nights took a hit and were all but killed once middle school happened and suddenly girls, lacrosse and the downtown movie theater with all the latest shows became far more enticing to a pair of almost teenagers.

But slowly over the last few years, Melissa and John and picked the habit back up. Neither could say for sure when it began in earnest. Just that once every couple of months became once every couple of weeks until this night, when he showed up at her doorstep with a DVD in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. She pulled him into the living room with an “Oh, thank GOD,” broke out the corkscrew, and they settled on the couch for an evening of laughs.

They always watched comedies. Between the hospital and sheriff’s station and the revolving door of monsters and assassins in Beacon Hills, they got enough drama, heartbreak and horror in their day to day lives that they didn’t want to relive it in their off time.

So comedy it was.

And this was a particularly good one — the sort that left them doubled over in wheezing laughter until Melissa finally jabbed at the remote, pausing it before they missed anything else.

It was in this moment, this moment where laughter left them leaning into one another with his arm draped casually over her shoulder that they could feel something begin to shift between them. It started with her reaching past him and pulling a handful of popcorn from the bowl next to him, carefully set aside so as not to spill kernels everywhere in their fits of laughter. It was a small moment. He looked down at her, and she looked up at him, offering one of the lightly salted puffs. Her fingers lingered on his cheek for just a moment, but it was long enough for their eyes to meet and a lifetime of shared experiences to pass between them, finally coming to a head. His chin tilted a little lower, hers a little higher, and when their lips met, everything around them was bathed in brightness.

The newness of kissing each other was intoxicating. And, to be honest, the act itself was long overdue for both of them. John leaned into her, and she wrapped her arms around him, warm and comforted in his embrace. She opened herself to him, and their kiss deepened, but as one of his hands went to rest at her hip, Melissa froze.

“Wait.” She broke the kiss and pulled away, returning the space that had always been between them before rising and pacing around the coffee table, arms crossed in front of her. When she stopped, she looked up at the TV screen where two characters stood frozen in time, not moving, never changing, until somebody pushed play.

She looked back to John. He was leaned forward on the couch, his elbows resting on his knees and his head bowed, staring at the floor with his hands laced behind his neck.

“It’s okay,” he said as he looked up at her.

“It’s Scott-”

“I get it.” He rubbed his eyes before letting his hands fall to rest limply at his knees as he searched for words. “That didn’t … I mean if you don’t…” he was floundering trying to find words to make what had happened less awkward. To put them back to normal for her. And any reservations she had been feeling disappeared as she stepped to him, dropped to her knees and took his face in her hands, kissing him fully. As he kissed her back, her hands moved down his arms until she met his hands and their fingers intertwined.

“It’s not that,” she said as she pulled back, leaning her forehead to rest against his. “I just don’t want my teenage werewolf to come home and smell all the amazing sex I absolutely want to have with you right now.”

John glanced up sharply, his eyes wide and a slack-jawed expression on his face. She grinned and arched her eyebrows.

“Not when I have a voucher for a free night at the Hampton in Hill Valley.”

A puff of air escaped his lips, almost a laugh as a small smile ticked upward and broke into a grin of his own.  
“Let’s take my car,” he said.

She stood and pulled him to his feet. The next few minutes were a frenzied rush as they got ready to leave, locking windows and doors, cramming leftover dinner into the refrigerator and clicking the TV off behind them, with whatever moment that had brought them to this point long forgotten.


	2. Where to Start

In their youth — two teenagers sneaking around after prom, a pair of college students en route to an empty dorm or even two young professionals in the midst of a particularly good date — they might have traversed the hotel’s hallway connected at the lips, tripping over each others’ feet and unable to keep their hands off one another as they fumbled with the door.

As two grown adults with teenage sons, they let prudence and responsibility lead them through the hall, each loaded down with plastic shopping bags after realizing they weren’t prepared for a platonic weekend away, much less the night of passion that had been flitting around their imaginations.

But, while certainly more responsible than winging it and definitely more preferable than turning back and rooting through their children’s rooms for condoms they tried to stay in denial about, the stop for supplies had been something of a mood dampener — saved only by the flower John had swiped from a display while she wasn’t looking and then tucked gently behind her ear.

Which might have explained why — after they entered the room, fumbled for light switches, deposited their bags in an overchair and Melissa filled a plastic cup with water for the flower — they were now standing at opposite ends of the small room, shifting nervously on their feet like two teenagers anxious for their first time with no idea where to start.

Suddenly, everything seemed as new as it was.

They met in the middle of the room, standing about a foot apart - _leave room for Jesus_ a small voice from some long ago class echoed in Melissa’s ear - and awkwardly shuffling their arms, unsure where to start. Waist? Shoulders? Hands?

“God, why is this so weird now?”

“Right?!” They both smiled and when John ducked his head down to stare at his feet she was struck by a visual that wouldn’t leave. He looked like a cute, shy boy at a school dance. It made her giggle. Actually giggle. And that made him laugh and smile and look up with eyes that were pale green and peaceful and suddenly she was speechless.

“I’ve got an idea,” he said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. With a few taps and swipes of his finger, a soft music filled the room. Tinkling pianos and strings made this little space feel more like a fancy restaurant featuring its own band. Or a community concert hall. Or, maybe, a high school gymnasium.

John set his phone on the dresser and reached a hand out to her.

“Care to dance?”

She smiled as she took his hand and let him draw her close. With one hand clasped in his, the other resting on his shoulder, they danced a small circle. She couldn’t stop grinning.

“So is this what prom is like?” she asked as he whisked her around.

“You didn’t go to prom?”

“Well, I went, but I spent the majority of it watching my date get drunk under the bleachers. Not a lot of dancing.”

“Ah,” he said as he gave her a gentle dip. “I see.”

“You?”

“Well,” he said, “at my junior prom, I went with my buddies and stood by the punch bowl trying to catch anybody’s eye. So, I was mostly just standing by the punch bowl.”

“No!”

“Yeah, believe it or not, I was not this specimen of a man you see before you back then. Junior prom, I was 5-foot-6 and 120 pounds soaking wet. Fine for track, bad for dates.”

“And senior year?”

He smiled slightly and there was something sad behind it.

“Senior prom…I was bigger then,” he said. “But I didn’t go.”

She nodded and had just enough time to wonder if the moment had been spoiled by some memory she didn’t know when he twirled her around and pulled her closer until they were dancing chest to chest, with his arm wrapped around and gently caressing her back.

“But I’d like to think if I had gone,” he continued. “It would have been like this.”

The music was winding down and fading out as they drew closer. Their lips touched and nothing else mattered. Soon he was kissing her cheek, her jaw, sliding his mouth down her neck, until he found the spot that made her melt into him. His hands traveled up her back and combed through her hair. He kissed her again but then he stopped, pulled back and looked behind her. His hands moved to rest on her shoulders. He looked down at one of them, and that almost sad expression played back on his face. She had just begun to follow his eyes when he stepped past her, walked toward the dresser and stopped in front of the mirror with his back to her. In the action, she caught a glimpse of shining gold.

It was his wedding band.

It had been almost ten years since Claudia died, and for all Melissa knew, John Stilinski had spent every day of them honoring her memory. Leaping into bed with her best friend seemed far from that, even if after all these years best friends was a term they could apply to each other, too. It was with that thought in mind that she went to him, wrapped her arms around him from behind and rested her cheek on his shoulder.

“It’s okay,” she said into the fabric of his shirt. “We can watch another movie. Eat some snacks. There are two beds here and tomorrow we can forget all this and go back to how things were.”

It wouldn’t be the night she’d found herself unexpectedly excited for, but it was the night she was willing to take to ease his mind and preserve the friendship they shared. If that was what he needed. If that was what he wanted.


	3. Then and Now

It started as a snag. It wasn’t a big one, in fact he didn’t even think Melissa noticed, but it pulled his attention from her lips. And it was when he was untangling his fingers from her hair that he saw that glint of gold in the mirror behind her. His wedding band. He drew a deep breath and stepped back, lightly resting his forehead against Melissa’s before stepping past her and standing against the hard wood of the dresser, staring down at his hands while his own reflection stared back.

That ring had been on his finger since the day he married Claudia. 

It almost came off once, about seven years ago. Stiles and Scott, during their brief interlude with the Boy Scouts, were at camp; Melissa was working a string of doubles to pay for Scott’s — always too proud to ask for help if she could manage on her own. And that left John. Alone. In a big empty house.

He’d had just enough beer to make a trip to a bar just outside of town seem like a good idea but not quite enough to make driving a bad one. It wasn’t the seediest bar around. That award belonged to an establishment on the opposite end of the county, across the street from a rundown motel that had a reputation as long as some of its regulars’ rap sheets. But this one had its own unofficial reputation as the place young women angry at their fathers or wives who hated their cheating husbands went for quick one-night stands. And after two years alone, John thought a one-night stand might be just what he needed. 

So he got there, found an out-of-the-way booth and cased the bar, trying to remember how on earth to hit on attractive women while looking for someone who might not completely spurn his advances. There was a brunette by the bar in a navy business suit and red lipstick just a hair’s breadth from being inappropriate for a business setting. She looked tired, but as she sipped her drink through a straw he watched her eyes travel the bar and the tiredness seemed to turn to loneliness. 

Maybe she was as lonely as he. He looked down at his ring. Twisted it a few times to loosen it and slid it upward. He got all the way to the top knuckle, its metal edge just touching the nail bed of his finger when he stopped, suddenly unsure of everything. And when he looked back up, the woman had moved on, now laughing and smiling with a small group by the pool tables. In her place sat then assistant girls’ basketball coach and substitute math teacher Bobby Finstock, hunched over the bar, staring at a shot of whiskey.

He didn’t know Finstock that well, but he’d heard rumors about the new coach who transferred in from Bayside on the graciousness of the BHHS principal, the recommendation of an influential resident and a promise to not squander a second chance after a drinking problem got him the boot from his old job. Stilinski pushed his ring back down his finger, rose from the booth and slid into the seat next to Finstock.

“Gonna drink that, Coach?”

“Gonna arrest me, Deputy?” Finstock asked, not looking up or over, just sliding his eyes slightly in Stilinski’s direction.

“No law against drinking,” Stilinski answered. “So long as you know when to stop.”

Finstock snorted  into the air. It was almost like a laugh as he slid the shot his way.

“Help yourself.”

Stilinski took the offered drink and downed it in one go. It was smooth and hot going down. Maybe the best shot he’d ever had, and it must have showed on his face.

“Top shelf,” Finstock said. Stilinski nodded as he set the glass back on the bar.

“Good stuff.”

“Yeah.”

“Can I get you boys anything else?” the bartender asked as he sauntered over, working the stereotype hard as he whirled a towel inside a tumbler.

“Just a beer.”

“Diet Coke. Lime wedge if you’ve got one.”

 _On me,_ Stilinski motioned at the bartender as he got their drinks. They drank in silence, eyes casually watching the game being played on TV above them. Finstock spoke first.

“My ex-wife is moving to Florida with her new husband. Some richy rich lawyer with one of those faces you just want to punch.”

“I know the type.”

“They’re taking my little girl with them. There’s literally no where else in the country they could go that would be farther away.” Stilinski winced. He’d seen some nasty divorce cases in his time, and some of the worst ones involved kids. Finstock roughly squeezed his lime wedge into his drink before dropping it onto the ice with a plop. “Kid’ll probably forget who I am entirely by the time she’s 10.”

Stilinski and Finstock both stared down at their drinks in silence. It wasn’t until he caught Finstock’s eyes traveling along the top shelf spirits again that he clapped his hand down on the man’s shoulder.

“Give you a ride home, Coach? Maybe you can call your girl?”

“Nah,” Finstock said. “She’ll be going to bed soon, anyway.”

“So call and tell her goodnight,” Stilinski said. “Don’t give her reason to forget you any earlier than you think.”

Finstock stared at him. Furrowed his brow before relaxing and nodding his head.

“Thanks.”

Stilinski paid the bill and walked Finstock out, drove him home and watched as he went inside. He flipped on a light and Stilinski could see him through the picture window, holding the phone in his hands, staring down at it. As Finstock began to dial, he drove away. 

Between going to the bar and dropping off Finstock, Stilinski had had a change of heart. Picking up random women wasn’t something he wanted. And it wasn’t something that would make Claudia proud — which was all he wanted. He never took that approach again. His ring stayed on his finger, and Stilinski relied on magazines and memories for his comfort and release.

But that night he was nearly home when his pager went off. He pulled into the nearest gas station and made a phone call. It turned out Scott had had an asthma attack at camp; he was fine, but the whole ordeal gave Stiles a panic attack, and both boys just wanted to come home. And with Melissa dealing with a three-car pileup at the hospital, could John please pick them up?

So instead of hooking up with a stranger, he did that. Not wanting to leave Scott alone, he brought the boy home and spent the night entertaining 10-year-olds until they conked out on the living room couch. He had just started to doze in a recliner when he heard a car pull up and its door gently shut. 

He met Melissa at the porch.

“God, thank you for getting him,” she said as she walked inside.

“No problem.”

She walked over to the boys and gave Scott a gentle nudge.

“Scott?” she said softly. “You okay?”

“Mmmmhmmm” he mumbled.

“Come on, let’s go home.

“Don’t wanna,” Scott said as he rolled over, burying his face in the crack between the sofa cushions and back.

“Scott McCall, I cannot carry you out of this house right now,” Melissa said almost sharply, but not quite.

Scott’s only response was an incomprehensible mumble and small snore.

Melissa stepped back and shook her head as one hand went to the bridge of her nose. 

“I just..I can’t even right now, I am so tired.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” John said. “Stiles has a hideaway bed in his room, and we’ve got a extra guest room, why don’t you guys just stay here tonight.”

“We can’t do that to you-”

“It’s no trouble. And you look too tired to be driving anyway.”

For the briefest of moments, she looked like she might protest, but in the end settled on a gracious smile.

“Thank you,” she said. Together they roused the boys and herded their little zombies upstairs and got them settled into bed, and Melissa was not far behind. The next morning he made pancakes, and life felt almost normal for the first time in years. And as Melissa and Scott headed out the door, he felt like he’d started the weekend ready to do something Claudia would be disappointed in, and ended it doing things that would make her proud.

And now, as he stood in a hotel room with her friend — with his friend — he didn’t know how to feel. Would she be disappointed in them? Or would his life — alone if not for his son — disappoint her just as much. 

But as Melissa stepped up to him and wrapped her arms around him, he began to feel like it didn’t matter in the slightest. Claudia was gone, but Melissa was here. And she’d been there almost every day since his life went into the blender. He gave his ring a twist.

Her breath bled hot through his shirt.

“It’s okay,” she said. “There are two beds here and tomorrow we can forget all this and go back to how things were.”

He turned in her arms, and as he did, the ring came off and slipped into a pocket.

“I don’t want to go back to how things were,” he whispered in her ear. He kissed her, and with arms wrapped tightly around her, he lifted, spun and sat her on the edge of the dresser. Leaning in to her the space between her legs, they were physically closer than they’d ever been. Her hands slid under his shirt, cool and soft against his chest, and pulling it over his head was like second nature. 

“Oh, wow,” she muttered with as light smile, and nibble at her bottom lip. “Sheriff’s life agrees with you, sir.” 

He blushed and ducked his head before catching her mouth with his again.

It was when his fingers went to the buttons of her blouse that she gave pause, breaking the kiss and laying a firm but gentle hand on his chest.

“What is it?” he asked. She opened her mouth to speak, shut it again and looked away. “Come on, what?”

“It’s just…” she paused, collecting her thoughts. “I’m a 40-something woman with a teenage son who works 12 hours days and subsides largely on takeout and cafeteria food. And you…well, you’ve apparently been hiding Mr. Hardbody under all that khaki and flannel and fleece, and I just-”

He kissed her again, and all the words left her brain. When they separated, he looked at her fully and honestly.

“First,” he said. “You flatter me with your lies, Melissa. Second, I’m a 40-something man with a teenage son who subsides on more secret burgers with bacon than said teenage son will ever know about. And third, I’d be surprised if you were hiding Mr. Hardbody under there.” He leaned in closer and whispered in her ear. “I’m not saying it’d be a deal breaker or anything. Just surprising.” His breath tickled her neck and ear and she couldn’t help but laugh. “And I’m feeling a little exposed over here,” he added. 

They kissed again, and his hand went back to her blouse, fumbling with the top two buttons, she lightly pushed his hand away, expertly did the next two, and when the garment was loose enough, she lifted it over her head and dropped it to the floor. He gazed at her body, soaking it in and licking his lips. 

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

For John, everything to this moment - laughing at the movie, kissing on the couch, and dancing in their hotel room felt good and natural and normal. But staring at her now, the gentle curves of her body, her skin that was somehow perfectly imperfect, he felt something more than warmth and comfort and the niggling sensation they should have done this before.

Looking at her now, he wanted her, and it was a desire so intense that he realized he'd almost forgotten what it was like to be so hungry for a woman in front of him. 

She had a small tattoo he’d never known about. Judging by its design, it had to be fairly recent: a wolf’s paw print, the pad in the middle shaped like a heart, rested on her chest, right over her own heart, low enough and off-center enough to stay hidden by even the lowest of low-cut tops. It was a reminder of the way their lives had changed over the past few years. A signal that no matter how bad things got, love would hold her family together. A symbol of everything that made the woman before him who she was, and he wouldn’t trade her for anything. 

He leaned down and kissed the tattoo, almost certain he could hear the steady beating of her heart as he went back to her lips, pulling one into his own, letting his teeth gently nibble before moving to her neck. She breathed heavily, her arms wrapped tightly around him, nails just starting to scratch at his skin. He moved to her throat and could feel her moan softly as his hands went behind her back, unhooking her bra. She grabbed him by the waistband of his jeans, pulled him closer still, grinding against him. His breath came in shuddered bursts as his body responded to her touch. He couldn’t see her, but he could feel her smile as he moved lower, sucking gently at her breast before dropping to one knee, peppering her abdomen with kisses. She moved her hands from him and placed them on the dresser, lifting herself slightly so that when he went to her waist, her jeans slipped off like nothing, revealing soft pink cotton panties that already felt warm with heat.

He tasted her through the fabric, and her sharp intake of breath and clench of her hand returning to his shoulder made a part of him twitch and tingle as he removed her last garment. 

It had been years since he’d went down on a woman, but being with her now, holding her in his mouth — letting his tongue wash over around and inside her — he realized it was like falling off a bike. Or falling in love.

During the night they made love. They fucked. They took turns owning each other with ravenous passion. They laughed when they realized how incredible the world was when they were together. They cried when they realized how much time they’d spent trying to fill the holes in their hearts with work or drink or films when they could have been filling them with each other. And then, when they were exhausted — used up and spent with nothing left to say or do, they held tight to each other and they slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I wrote this, I wanted to experiment with fade-to-black. But after I posted it, I realized I really wanted to write their love scenes, too. So, I did. If you want to take a brief interlude to the new companion piece to this, A Little Less Conversation, you'll find all the sexy good times that happened between the lines of this chapter.


	4. The Next Morning

Melissa and John would have been happy to spend their Sunday together, wrapped up in a bed sheet. They awakened only moments apart and were holding hands beneath the covers, staring into each others’ eyes looking for a future they both hoped would be there. It was the buzzing of John’s phone — and then Melissa’s that pulled them apart and got them out of bed.

Dual texts and phone calls were rarely a good thing. In the early days, it usually meant something was wrong with Scott and/or Stiles. Maybe they’d been horsing around in a tree or a jungle gym and fallen out. Or they were playing baseball in the backyard even though they knew they were only supposed to do it at the park and a pop fly had gone crashing through Mrs. Martinez’s back window. Basically, they’d had gotten up to something they shouldn’t have been doing, and if they weren’t hurt, they were in trouble with someone. But in recent years — since John became a sheriff, Melissa took on the hospital’s head nurse role, and their boys found themselves smack in the middle of a supernatural universe — dual texts took on a new meaning and held far more potential for pain than skinned knees, broken arms or shattered glass. If it wasn’t a highway pileup, a grisly accident or stunning shootout…it was worse.

But this time, they flicked open their phones, saw their messages and … well … no one was dead. No one was hurt, and nothing was overrunning the city. But it just might have been worse.

**STILES:**  
Where are you?! Parents Breakfast started 30 minutes ago.

  
**SCOTT:**  
We ran out of juice at the breakfast. Could you pick some up on your way? Apple, orange and cran.

Melissa and John looked up, twin expressions of horror on their faces. In the bliss of the night before, they had forgotten all about the annual parents’ breakfast the Sunday before school started. All the seniors got together at the school’s cafeteria to cook and serve breakfast  — with very little adult supervision, Melissa had heard — for the men and women who’d helped them reach senior year.

They dropped their phones on the small table and dove for the bags they’d brought from the store. Melissa pulled out the shampoo and headed for the shower, and John tapped a few buttons on his phone before pulling a new razor and small canister of shaving cream from another bag.

Melissa hadn’t been in the shower long when John finished shaving, but as he was drying his face, he heard her hiss. 

“I don’t think this hot water’s going to last,” she said. “You might pop in here while you can.”

He couldn’t help but smile as he pulled back the shower curtain and stepped into the bath tub. If he thought she was beautiful any other time of day, she was absolutely magnificent soaking wet with streams of water rolling down her body.

The water indeed was fast fading to lukewarm. She shifted to the back of the tub, giving him room under the flow while she ran conditioner through her hair. As they moved again so she could rinse out, he couldn’t help but stare. And as her hands came down — her hair free of product — he leaned in and kissed her once more. There was no shower sex in their hasty morning, just wet soapy hands exploring each other from top to bottom until the water turned to ice cold droplets that drove them out of the bathroom, where they huddled together in soft towels.

The alarm beeped on John’s phone. 

“If we leave in five minutes, we can still manage fashionably late,” John said. She ran a finger across his cheek, moving back around his neck until she had pulled him close to her.

  
“Are we sure we want to trust a bunch of teenagers with breakfast foods?”

“Well, it probably won’t kill us.” John said. “I think I heard Stiles say he wouldn’t be cooking, after all.” She smiled once more and kissed his cheek.

“If you say so.”

They dressed and drove to the school, indeed making it before the place had filled entirely thanks to some light speeding and empty grocery store.

“Where have you guys been?!” Stiles asked as they walked into the cafeteria. They looked at each other, unsure of what to say, but apparently Stiles wasn’t looking for an answer as he led them to two seats at one of several round tables set up with short plastic table cloths. He grabbed the jugs of juice from Melissa and ran them back to Scott, returning with two plates of food.

In front of Melissa he sat two pancakes, a side of bacon and a jar of warm maple syrup. In front of John…

“Stiles, what the hell is this?”

“That’s an egg white omelet with turkey sausage and grapes.”

“An…egg white omelet?”

“It’s healthy!”

“Oh, god Stiles would you just get me a pancake?!”

“Fine, fine. It’s your funeral,” he muttered as he stalked back to the kitchen. John picked up his sausage patty in disgust before letting it flop back down onto his plate.

“He means well,” Melissa said.

“I know,’ John sighed. “I’m just not sure where he got the idea I’ve got a foot in the grave with another dancing around a coronary.”

“Where do they get any of their ideas,” Melissa said as she held a piece of bacon out to him. “Bacon?”

“Mm, thank you,” he said as he leaned forward taking a bite straight from her hand. “Delicious.”

“I thought you’d appreciate it.” She reached over with one hand a plucked a grape from his plate. “But I’m stealing your grapes.”

“Melissa, you may have all of my grapes now and forever.” She smiled and looked away as she popped the fruit in her mouth, a faint blush showing behind her ears.

“I’d like that,” she answered.


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't NOT include the boys.

“Okay, Scott, I need some pancakes for my dad; here’s the juice, and where did you learn to do that?”

Scott grinned a toothy grin as he popped two pancakes onto a plate.

“Well, for the round one I watched your dad. And for the Wolfman I watched Youtube.” He picked up a squeeze bottle of pancake batter, gave it a flip and stuck it into an apron pocket.

“You don’t think a Wolfman pancake is a little on the nose?”

“Nah, it’s — whoa. Stiles look.” Stiles followed Scott’s gaze through the door and to their parents’ table. Natalie Martin and Coach Finstock had joined them, and the four were engaged in deep conversation. All eyes were on the coach, who kept tossing glances at Mrs. Martin while gesticulating wildly until the whole table burst into laughter.

“What? Coach and Mrs. Martin are making moon eyes at each other. Sure Lydia'll love that. Hey, who invited Coach, anyway?”

“I think it was Greenburg,” Scott said as he gave a few strips of bacon a flip. “But LOOK.” He snapped his tongs directly at their parents and Stiles looked again.

The quartet was all smiles, laughing happily and enjoying each other's company. In a different life, he could almost imagine them as teenagers, sitting at lunch between classes, but as his gaze traveled downward he could see their parents were sitting hand-in-hand with their fingers tangled together. And if he squinted, he could see a clear absence of his father’s wedding ring.

“Huh,” he said. “Well it’s about damn time.”

Scott finished plating food for the sheriff, coach and Mrs. Martin and helped Stiles balance them on outstretched arms.

“How long do you think that’s been going on?”

“I dunno,” Scott answered.

“Well, can’t you like sniff it out or something. Use those werewolf senses to see if they’ve been-”

“Dude, no, I’m not doing that.”

"I meant ask and listen to their hearts!" Stiles hissed. "And now you've given me a mental image that's ruined breakfast _forever_ , AND are making me figure it out for myself.”

“Be nice, Stiles.”

“I’m always nice.” Stiles said with a wicked grin as he walked away, stepping carefully and slowly to keep from losing the plates.

Scott watched him go and looked back to their parents. He couldn’t help but grin, too. Something told him that senior year was going to be interesting.


End file.
